Tesla design chief says new Roadster coming ‘very soon’ — sure

This is car news, not a home energy story, but here's what happened: Tesla's design chief, Franz von Holzhausen, told Jay Leno on his garage show that the long-promised next-generation Roadster is coming "very soon." Leno, unimpressed, pointed out it's been "just shy of ten years" since Tesla first showed the car.

That timeline is the real story. Tesla unveiled a Roadster prototype in 2017 and promised production by 2020. Since then the date has slipped repeatedly — to 2022, 2023, 2024, and beyond. Elon Musk set a demo date of April 1, 2026, which he later admitted was chosen partly for "deniability," then pushed it to late April, then to a vague "month or so," then to August. As of now, no public demo has happened. The current holdup is a SpaceX-designed thruster system for the car, which reportedly still isn't ready.

Even if a demo does happen soon, actual production isn't expected until 2027 or 2028. The original pitch was a car that goes 0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds, tops out near 250 mph, gets 620 miles of range, and starts around $200,000. People who reserved one nearly a decade ago, some paying $250,000 up front, are still waiting. None of this affects home energy upgrades or rebates — it's simply an update on a car that keeps not arriving.